- Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau - Hamburg
Digital hydromorphological twin of the Trilateral Wadden Sea
The project “Digital hydromorphological twin of the Trilateral Wadden Sea” focuses
on cooperation of cross-border data innovations between The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark,
the provision / harmonization of data together with a new digital geodata and
analysis infrastructure for the trilateral Wadden Sea World Heritage Site These
data and information are linked via Web portals and services to form a
versatile assistance system.
Different demands, requirements and restrictive environmental legislation pose major
challenges for the planning and maintenance of transport infrastructure in the
marine environment. TrilaWatt aims at developing and implementing a powerful
spatial data and analysis infrastructure on a homogenized database comprising
the Trilateral Wadden Sea area of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.
High-resolution hydrographic data series are locally available for the German Bight.
These can be combined into spatial models. Due to the high mapping effort, area-wide
morphological and especially sedimentological surveys can only be conducted at
intervals of several years or decades. On the other hand, current issues
require much higher temporal resolution for the analysis and assessment of
environmental impacts in the entire Wadden Sea. Pressures are addressed in the
MSFD Annex III among others as descriptors "seabed integrity" (D6)
and "hydrographic alterations" (D7). These can be sufficiently
classified with modelling data as physical loss or physical disturbance, which
is a crucial distinction for the approval of new transport and
infrastructure projects.
Today, the cost of maintaining infrastructure for transport is very high. A solid and
consistent database can help to find optimization potentials for partially
conflicting goals such as economic efficiency, environmental interests,
navigability, acceptance, etc. A digital planning assistance system based on
comprehensive processed data and documented by meaningful metadata will aid the
evaluation process.
Maintenance of seaport approaches and port facilities is strongly determined by the seaward
sediment input. An accurate description of hydromorphology allows to identify
sources, sinks, and transport paths of sediment. For a heuristic and synoptic
modelling set up of the German Bight the adjacent regions must be considered.
Therefore, planning and assessment for the southern North Sea should be done on
a transnational basis.
Reproducing the complex physical processes in coastal and especially in tidal mudflat
regions depends on an accurate data situation, which unfortunately is often
heterogeneous, patchy and not harmonized across borders. TrilaWatt will provide
quality-assured spatial data of geomorphology, sedimentology, and hydrodynamics
together with extensive analyses obtained from numerical simulations (2005,
2010, 2015 and 2020). The data is available free of charge via geoportals such
as MDI-DE, mCLOUD and GOVDATA according to the Open Data directive and
the FAIR-Principle (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable).
The novel service-based assistance system for planning and reporting using generic
documentation components implements Web-Processing Services (WPS) on OGC
standards. This service can be used in various target systems, e. g., for
transport and environmental management or the classification of Outstanding
Universal Values (OUV) in the Wadden Sea. It is already being used as part of
the EU reporting obligations for the Water Framework Directive
(WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive
(MSFD) as well as for detailed scientific studies.
Project partners are the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW),
the Wadden Sea Forum e. V., smile consult GmbH and planGIS GmbH.
Funding is provided by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV)
in its mFUND funding line.